"Komori-san says that the sensor quality of Fujifilm X mirrorless will exceed that of current full-frame sensors, although its sensor size will likely be smaller than 24x36mm. The claim reminded me of something…I have a hazy memory of someone with knowledge of the industry telling me long ago that an official of Canon said that Fuji is the only company Canon is scared of—not Panasonic, not Sony, not Nikon—because of Fuji’s expertise with sensors. (I might not have that right, so please don’t quote me.)"

Fuji probably is seeing a void left by Leica not making the M8 any longer.

IMHO if you want to be concerned about something why is there going to be a proprietary mount, when they could have used the open source M-mount? Fuji used to make M glass, too.

z

Oh, so M mount can do AF now? NO! That’s the reason shitty GXR is the only non-RF camera that used proprietary M mount while all other cheaper, lighter and smaller camera can give better IQ(spare the ultra-wide) and better focusing aid with only $20 adapter.

And in case you wonder what the hell is AF for in this world where every hipster use film and shoot fixed aperture holgas, optical viewfinder without rangefinder can’t do any kind of manual focusing! Not now, not ever. If you use the LCD for focusing, that pretty much beats the reason of OVF altogether.

WT21

Perhaps a little more aggressive than I’d express it, but on the money!

“optical viewfinder without rangefinder can’t do any kind of manual focusing! Not now, not ever. ”

A TLR can seem to do just that.
The question is with today’s technology can you reinvent the TLR, so a smaller OVF is actually zoomable. Likely soon… but not yet. The rest is just mathmatics.

MJr

‘less usefull’. Thanks.

JG10

They should be afraid of Sony. The sensor in the 5N is impressive.

Inge-M.

And also Samsung, sensor to Samsung NX200 is very nice.

MJr

Is not …

AS

The sensor in the 5N is exactly the same one found in Nikon D5100, D7000 etc. It is nothing special about it. Sony has made it’s NR algoritms better that’s all. And to be honest I don’t like the new sony NR, it looks so plastic.
But please, don’t ge me wrong, the 5N is a fantastic camera especialy considering the price, but the sensor itself is nothing out of common…

Anyway, I can’t wait the new Fuji sensor implementation.

Calibrator

> The sensor in the 5N is exactly the same one found in Nikon D5100, D7000 etc. It is nothing special about it.

But that’s exactly the point: It’s a full-blown DSLR-sensor in a small mirror-less body – while most of the competition uses much smaller, less capable sensors for the same or even higher price.

FMJ

lets just put it this way, Canon is really behind……

Fuji sensor, the 5N (D7000, K5) sensor, and some older Nikon (D700) all are better….

maybe its time to sell my 5Dc

MJr

Canikon is just having a nap, but when they wake up … oh just you wait 😉

All the sensors you mentioned are good ones except the 12MP FF one Nikon uses in their D700, D3, D3s, etc. It was outdated at launch and the only way Nikon is making it survive is by adding more and more noise removal (flip side is detail smearing) and not giving any other options to Nikon users. The 1Ds3 and the 5D2 both have the same overall SNR that you get from the D700/D3 but people just don’t know how to do a comparison.

If the D700’s sensor is any good owners won’t be ditching the features of the D700 and jumping ship to the less-featured 5D2, right? But they do.

As for Canon, they’ve been pretty slow lately in the FF department until the 1D X was announced. But here’s a list of Canon sensors:

These are all Canon sensors. And don’t forget things like gapless microlenses that lets their 15MP sensor have per-pixel noise levels of older 10MP ones.

Here’s what Nikon did:

D3: Took a Sony sensor and applied detail smearing NR
D700: Same as D3 sensor, in a smaller body
D3s: Same as D3/D700 sensor but with even more detail smearing NR
D3X: Sony’s noisy a900 sensor + NR again.

🙂

benjamin

you clearly havent taken the d700 for a spin. try it out and let us know if there’s ‘detail smearing nr’ =)

You couldn’t be more mistaken. The only difference in sharpness in RAW files comes from different AA filters. Canon is known to use very light ones. The proof comes from the much more apparent moiré patterns and a bit of stairstepping here and there.

There’s more to it than the AA filters but no need to take my word for it. Try this yourself… shoot the same scene with the same lens, etc. with both cameras and down-size the 5D2’s 21MP image until it matches the detail (not file resolution) of the D3/D700/D3s’s image. You’ll see it’s less than 12MP.

I’m not afraid – I’m really excited. As a D3 owner the thought that something could be that amazing makes me giggle with decadent delight. I was blown away by the D3 sensor but I know that if anyone could blow it out the water it’s Fuji.

Herman, you are a troll – you behave that way only because you are online, unless you are like this also in real life, then you are an a**hole.

MiTaka

Mike is a great photographer but he is not great market analyst. Fuji are no threat to canon and they won’t be at least three more generations of cameras. Canon are the leader in dslr sensor technology. They beat sony/nikon 4 years on fullframe. Beat the same again on 20+ sensor. They were ahead with the 7d (same technology as 1d3) sensor, at least 1 year. At the moment fuji is no threat for canon. The only products that go head to head are g12 and x10 (excluding the me too compacts from both).
Fuji at their best till now (s2 pro times) were near nikon, but with a flawed body. Hope that this time they will have both the body and the sensor!

MG

If it has no EVF, it’s gonna be another near perfect camera – and I’m not going to buy it 🙁
no EVF would mean no adapter + M-mount compatibility.

Blue

I have both a Nikon D7000 and a Fuji X100. When shooting at night, the Nikon has very noticeable noise at ISO 3000 while the Fuji is completely clean and still very sharp at the same ISO. Most of the time, I have to bring down the ISO of the Fuji because it makes night scenes way brighter than it actually is in real life. Going out at night in the city, I used to grab a Nikon w/ a 1.4 lens. I am pretty happy with the built-in F2.0 of the Fuji.

fants

What a world we have when people are complaining that there is noticeably noise at ISO 3000! 5 Years ago most cameras’ ISO 1600 was virtually unusable!

I think this is total bs. An organic sensor? They just even manage to produce oleds and those degrade after a couple of years. Maybe there’s a chance to do something with oled sensor-wise but I don’t believe it will exceed semiconductor much and definitely not before a long time.

Ben y

Am I the only one who isn’t too bothered if there isn’t an evf? I’ll happily take an optical finder with information overlay. I guess if you want an evf, go with the nex 7, I’ll take the Fuji instead any day.

Funny thing is, pretty much everyone who bought a X100 bought it also because of the hybrid OVF but now if you go to a X100 group and ask around, a majority of them are using the EVF instead because the hybrid OVF is not very reliable in showing focus. And the only reason why they’re using the EVF is because it sucks to get a X100 and use the rear LCD 😀

I’ve been a huge fan of Fuji from the start because of their Super CCD SR sensors, long before Fuji came in to popularity with their X series. But having used the X100, I really don’t see it being better than the new Canons. Would like to see any proper comparisons that made you come to your conclusions. Thanks.